1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is concerned with synchronisation of baseband communications in a wireless communications network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Within a base transceiver station of a wireless communications network, a bus protocol is used to communicate between different nodes. The present invention is concerned particularly but not exclusively with communication between baseband (BB) and radio frequency (RF) nodes in the base transceiver station. Nodes are implemented in a plurality of different ways, and in the following description it is understood that the term “node” implies any appropriate hardware unit, for example an ASIC, processor or FPGA, etc.
The bus protocol used between the different nodes of the base transceiver station is used to transfer digitised transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) samples as well as other information.
The present invention addresses the problem of synchronising a bus, in particular a high speed bus operating a bus protocol used for communication between different nodes in a base transceiver station.
It is a further aim of the present invention is to provide a frame format used in conjunction with synchronisation methods for synchronising communications on a multi-mode communications bus, which does not require complex circuitry.